UM's Rick Saggese triumphs over tragedy and injury.
(By Rachel Alexander-Staff Writer)
CORAL GABLES-From the dugout, University of Miami baseball player Rick Saggese doesn't look particularly
special.
A 5-foot-10, 172-pound redshirt freshman, Saggese can get lost amount the teams
35 other players as he trots out to practice every day, trying to break into the starting lineup as a first baseman.
He's not outspoke or even that athletic. He's just the toughest guy on the filed.
"I've never seen anything like him and I've been doing this for 23 years,"
said Bob Smith, Saggese's coach at Barron Collier High School in Naples. "With everything that's happended, that he's still
out there. It's just Rick, though."
Just Rick, the kid who grew up breathing baseball but never quite grew
into the body of a baseball player. Rick, whose family moved to Florida in 1990 from Andover, Mass., paying off two
mortgages for a while so he could get a better shot. Rick, who had two friends who drove a car into a dump truck, killing
one and giving the other, a teammate, brain damage so he could never play baseball again.
That was all by the time he was 15 years old. By the time he got to
Miami, Saggese had torn the anterior cruciate ligament in both of his knees, a highly uncommon injury among baseball players
that at times left him unable to walk.
And he had lost his father. Rick Saggese, Sr., was a volunteer assistant
on Sagges's high school baseball team. The elder Saggese took off work early one day to come to practice and help one
of Rick's teammates with his swing, but he never walked off the field. Just 10 minutes after Rick Jr. got a few batting
tips from his father, another player hit his father in the head with a line drive, causing massive bleeding in his brain.
He died in a hostpital the next day.
"I was on the field when it happened," Saggese said, his voice beginning
to crack. "He wasn't even scheduled to be there, and somtimes I think that if that kid hadn't been struggling that he'd probally
still be...well, it's definitely reminds you of what's important-I never knew someting could be taken away so quickly."
Saggese's family later discovered that Rick Sr. had an aneurysm developing,
and they donated his organs to a Miami Hospital. They tried to mourn. They tried to move on.
"For a while Rick didn't have a whole lot to say, even to me," said Cecile Saggese,
Rick's mother. "I do remember his exact words once-he said "I lost my dad and my best friend." I mean, they were extremely
close, where you saw one, you saw the other. No exception."
Rick Sr. had also been a hot prospect in high school, but he too had an injury
problems when he broke his kneecap his senior year and never recovered. So when Rick was born, all his dreams of the
big leagues tumbled down to his young son. If there was an instructional video, he would make his son watch it.
When other kids took 20 reps at practice, Rick Jr. knew his father would
expect 40.
"It was baseball 18 hours a day with the two of them"Smith said. "Even now, you'll
see Rick in the dugout with index cards. They're full of sayings his dad used to remind him of certain things about
hitting, like to keep his shoulder in or his head a certain way."
"I remember Rick just looked at me after his father died, and he said he was going
to try even harder to get ot the majors now. He played in the game the next night. He had his inner drive."
Saggese carried on until the middle of his junior year, when his foot slipped off
the first-base bag, twisting his left leg and tearing his ACL. Just mentioning that injury, which occurs in basketball
and sometimes football but rarely in baseball, makes most athletes shudder. It often ends careers.
But Saggese worked hard, lifted weights and went to physical therapy. Eventually,
he recovered, signed with UM and became an All-American with his .405 batting average his senior year. Things finally
looked better, until it happended all over again.
"It was three days before the draft in an all-star game, and my spikes got caught
in the grass" said Saggese, who later found out he had just torn the ACL in his other knee.
"At first, I was like, I'm not doing this again. I can't." I mean the rehabilitation
for something like that is awful. They have to teach you to walk again; there were times when the trainer would do something
and I would start screaming."
Eventually, it was his mother who saw him through. Cecile, who still lives
in Naples, had never been as close to Rick as her husband was, and even after his father died Rick Jr. often kept to himself.
But then, with the knees she knew.
"I had to be there for him, he was in such agony," she said. "I just told
him that if you want to play ball, you have to get your legs fixed. When you come to the end of a road, you just have
to keep walking."
After months of work, Saggese was able to walk onto the Coral Gables campus, although
continuing rehabilatation forced him to redshirt his freshman year. He said sitting on the bench "killed him," but that
he tried to keep learning for afar.
Now that he is active, he is averaging .214 this season and, after starting
the year as a pinch hitter, has made two starting appearances at first base. It is a position that demands agility,
athleticism and usually decent height, but Saggese is convinced that like his idol, the 5-10 Don Mattingly, he will make it
to the majors.
"With the injuries, he hasn't taken as many reps as he should have, and it
has also hurt is quickness, his mobility and bending down to get ground balls," said UM coach Jim Morris, who has only know
one other player in 21 years to even suffer an ACL tear. "But he's got a great swing, the ball just jumps off the bat.
Currently, we're switching off between him and T.R at first, and the best man will win."
So for now, Saggese will go out to practice every day, one of the many, trying
to make his mark. Like every one of his teammates, he hopes to make it to the majors, but unlike most of them, he has
already sacrificed more than his share to get there. Smith is convinced Saggese will be in the big leagues one day,
on sheer will alone if not on talent. At night, Cecile prays it will happen.
After all, Saggese has already played in one World Series-the Little League version
when he was 12 and still living in Andover. Back then, his parents promsed him that they would come to see him suit up,
wherever he went.
"They always said they would travel around to see me play," he said. "With
my mom alone it's kind of hard for her to come down here too often, but if I get to the majors, I know she'll be there."
After all of this, Cecile said, of course she will. And somehow, it's understood
that if Saggese does make it, Rick Sr. will be there too.
